Old PC worth building for AI War?

[Fleet]

Hi all. I have some old parts that I'm think about using to play AI War on. Thing is, they would take a while to clean (CPU cooling block/fan, case, etc). I'm hoping I can get some feedback from someone running similar hardware, although I may go ahead and build it anyway.

-Athlon 3200+ (~2GHz), single core
-Asus K8N mobo
-~750MB RAM (PC3200 I think, if that makes sense for RAM a few years old. If not its slower
-ATi Radeon 9200 w/ 256MB memory

I would be playing on XP, so from the System Requirements it seems my processor will be the limiting factor. Since it only reccomends a 1.6GHz proc, does this mean if I played a network game and had another host, my comp would have a fighting chance of running the game smoothly? I could deal with not being able to play solo games.

Thanks for your input. If anyone wants, I can post feedback on how it runs if I build it.

[Velox]

     Having played for quite some time on a similar system (P4 2.4ghz, single core, 768 MB RAM, similar graphics board) I suspect that you'd find your proposed machine rather underpowered.  I found myself down to 10-15% of real-time even on 40-planet games once I'd reached the mid to late phases of a game and it was just painful.  As you suggest, the processor is the weak point - having only a single core just doesn't seem to cut it.  There have been some performance improvements since then, though, and I never tried multiplayer so I'm not sure what effect that would have on performance, so don't take my word as final.

[Fiskbit]

Well, it's worth adding to Velox's post that the AI is pretty demanding, so moving that load off to to whoever is the host will leave your CPU free to do other things. I can't imagine the performance would be stellar, but I feel like it might be able to do decently in multiplayer late in the game.

My system's pretty beefy, so I can't really give any experience-related input to this discussion, unfortunately. You might do well with that on smaller maps and not being the host. Just be weary that having too many ships on one planet might get a little painful; that's the part of the game where my system starts to hurt, even while it doesn't particularly care about a hundred thousand enemy ships elsewhere in the galaxy.

[Snowman]

I have played AI War on a Athlon 3400+ , single core, with an ATI Radeon 1950 pro AGP and 2 gig of ram. It was okay for singleplayer, till endgame with lots of units, then it was sluggish. Multiplayer as a host was not so hot.

I upgraded for AI Wars to a Athlon II x3 435, a 785G AMD board and 4 gig of Ram. Great bang for the buck and AI War runs smoooooooth .......

[Fleet]

I have build the system, but am having trouble getting AI War to run. I'll update this thread if/when I get a fix, to post about the performance.

[Echo35]

I have yet to play on a machine with only one core, but 2 GHz should be more than plenty. I've seen people run this game on Atom's afterall.

[RCIX]

I have played it SP on a (small map on a)n Atom netbook with a GB of ram, so yeah if you can get away with not hosting multiplayer those specs sound fine.

[x4000]

I have played it SP on a (small map on a)n Atom netbook with a GB of ram, so yeah if you can get away with not hosting multiplayer those specs sound fine.

Do bear in mind that the internal architecture of a modern Atom, or a modern Core 2 Duo or AMD machine, is significantly different from older Pentium 4s and Athlons, etc.  Even when the clock speed is similar or better, it's often apples to oranges.  Still with 30-40 planets at most, it seems likely that the 3200 would work will in single-player.  If another person is hosting, then the odds of that working smoothly are even better, especially on the latest prereleases.  But, it always varies a bit with the specific buildout of the machine.